A Sigh of Relief.....

The conclusion to my rental house dilemma......

So after almost nine months of having not only the mortgage payment on our new house, but the additional payment on the rental house, we were financially at the end of our rope.  The tenants (who moved out after living there a decade) were, to put it as nicely as possible, TOTAL SLOBS.  As soon as they moved out, we had to do some extensive work on the house, whether we were to decide to sell it or rent it again.  This included paint, carpet, new flooring, roof work, yard work, extensive cleaning, etc. etc.  After all the work was said and done, and our checkbook pretty much exhausted, I decided I did not want to deal with being a landlord again - the hassle of finding the right tenants, collecting the rent on time in order to get the mortgage paid, cleaning up their mess when they decided to move, and on and on.  That left us with only one other option -put the house on the market and try to sell it.  Luckily my step-brother is a realtor, so that was a pretty easy step.  However, after a couple of months, there had been little activity (it was only shown a couple of times.)  By this time, I thought my husband's pretty blonde hair was going to turn gray or he was going to be hospitalized with an ulcer from worrying about the financial obligations.  After much praying, an idea just popped into my head while driving to work one day.  A co-worker of mine has recently started buying homes that were about to be foreclosed on and selling them right away for a small profit.  I immediately called him, reduced the price of the house (to a little less what I would have profited had I had to pay real estate commission) and offered him the deal.  Amazingly enough, he was very interested.  To make a long story short, we closed on the house Friday afternoon.  I left fairly happy, with my small profit and the relief that we were back to only one mortgage payment.  Thank God that things always seem to have a way of working out.  So, until the next crisis comes along..........